1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication device of moving body information, and in particular, relates a moving body information communication device and system in which information is obtained from a moving body for detecting moving body information.
2. Conventional Art
A conventional information exchanging system between moving bodies is disposed, for example, in JP-A-9-180094 (1997), in which through a navigation device provided with a traffic jam judging means which judges whether the own car is included into a traffic jam and with a communication device which exchanges information with other cars, traffic jam information is exchange with cars passing each other as well as such communication information wire tapped by a fixed station is provided to other moving body vehicles.
Further, as disposed in JP-A-11-86184 (1999) a system is known in which information is collected to a center from probe cars and the collected information is transmitted from the center to a moving body vehicle requesting concerned information.
The above conventional art does not take into account of collecting information with regard to specific regions from moving bodies in response to an information from an information requesting side. Further, in order to collect information, it was necessary that information exchanged by moving body vehicles is wire-trapped or a fixed station has to inquire traffic jam information to respective moving body vehicles.
An object of the present invention is to provide a moving body information communication device which can obtain moving body information in response to information request from an information requesting side.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a moving body information communication system which distributes processings of information collected by moving bodies.
A moving body information communication device according to the present invention which achieves the above object is characterized, in that the moving body information communication device is provided with a first communication means which receives request information from an information requesting side and a second communication means which transmits the request information to at least one moving body existing at a predetermined region, wherein when moving body information corresponding to the request information is transmitted from the moving body, the moving body information is transferred to the information requesting side.
Further, the moving body information transmission device according to the present invention further comprises a memory which stores moving body information always receiving from the moving body, and when the request information is stored in the memory, the moving body information transmission device reads the stored information and transfers the same to the information requesting side and when no request information is stored in the memory, the device transmits the request information to the moving body.
Still further, the moving body information stored in the memory is classified according to its freshness and when the freshness of the information is within a freshness threshold value, the moving body information is determined to be transferable to the informating requesting side.
Still further, when the request information is not stored in the memory, it is judged whether the communication traffic of the moving body information communication device is within a predetermined allowable value, and when the communication traffic is within the predetermined allowable value, the device transmits the request information to the moving body. Thereby, when a load of the moving body information communication device is high, the inquiry to the moving body is suppressed.
Still further, according to the present invention a plurality of the moving body information communication devices are connected through a network and in each of which a moving body management means is provided which receives moving body identification and position information periodically declared by the moving body and manages the same.